“Policy Drives All in a Have/Have-Not World” - Security research on natural disasters and the global environment
By 2035 there is growing awareness across decisions-makers in the EU that competing national and regional policies beyond their borders are producing an increasingly fragmented world, split into tiny privileged elites versus the teeming masses of “have-nots”. The rapidly evolving risk for everyone is a disastrous collapse of society and civilization.
The EU wants realignment toward a consensual international policy designed to confront this divergence. But the regions retreat further into their own parochial agendas, where power derives from political groupings at the expense of society at large, democracy and the environment. A central strand in the EU’s Security Research programme is to develop internal and external security mitigation/adaptation strategies needed for a world split into haves and have-nots.
A parallel research strand aims to push back against this externality by focusing on ethics, individual freedom and rights to further promote the EU’s democratic structures, thus offering a role model to the outside world. The goal is to counter the threats posed to the global environment caused by competing regional policies. This calls for better communication and dissemination techniques to broaden the EU public’s understanding of the regulatory and policy tools needed to mitigate those regions’ deleterious policies.
Society is under pressure of rapid global environmental change. Research urgently needs to find ways to combine prevalent short-term solutions to imminent problems with effective long term measures. Inside the EU a certain degree of sustainable development technologies in 2035 has been taken up by the markets. Even this modest achievement gives the EU a leading role in the research and application of renewable energies and recycling technologies where a huge international market has opened in response to costly fossil fuels.
At the same time, Europe’s recycling has helped reduce its dependency on raw material imports such as copper and rare earths. The nuclear industry’s rocketing safety and security costs, together with several severe accidents, are pushing the sector to extinction. Security Research includes analysis of cheap, safe and rapid techniques for dismantling the sector’s infrastructure and minimizing nuclear waste-related risks. Although EU policymakers in 2035 know that Europe’s centralized electricity power grid is a main source of vulnerability to attack, decentralization and localization of energy production is not achievable, however, since it is opposed by the grid’s large corporations who still own and control most of the infrastructure.
The EU in 2035 also wants better forecasting of natural disasters, a goal shared and co-funded by industry since better modelling would help reduce the overall cost of an event’s impact. The systems aim to target the drivers of natural disasters and refine long term forecasts about the planet’s ecological limits. This “greener” research footing calls for evaluating the compatibility of technologies, trade regulations and international treaties with the global environment, and developing alternative fiscal systems that shift tax bases away from labour to resource use and waste.
Complementary EU policy in 2035 favours natural disaster resiliency linked to re-creating natural river beds and mixed forests to combat erosion and promote bio-diversity. This leads to a new EU land-classification system that supports organic farming based on old seeds and locally adapted, highly resilient non-GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) cultivars.
Despite its green efforts, new climate-change related diseases are on the rise in the EU. Combined with Europe’s increase in life expectancy, these factors leads to huge investments in gerontology while research examines how shifting habitats will generate new epidemiological threats, such as vector-transmitted diseases.
By 2035 there is growing awareness across decisions-makers in the EU that competing national and regional policies beyond their borders are producing an increasingly fragmented world, split into tiny privileged elites versus the teeming masses of “have-nots”. The rapidly evolving risk for everyone is a disastrous collapse of society and civilization.
The EU wants realignment toward a consensual international policy designed to confront this divergence. But the regions retreat further into their own parochial agendas, where power derives from political groupings at the expense of society at large, democracy and the environment. A central strand in the EU’s Security Research programme is to develop internal and external security mitigation/adaptation strategies needed for a world split into haves and have-nots.
A parallel research strand aims to push back against this externality by focusing on ethics, individual freedom and rights to further promote the EU’s democratic structures, thus offering a role model to the outside world. The goal is to counter the threats posed to the global environment caused by competing regional policies. This calls for better communication and dissemination techniques to broaden the EU public’s understanding of the regulatory and policy tools needed to mitigate those regions’ deleterious policies.
Society is under pressure of rapid global environmental change. Research urgently needs to find ways to combine prevalent short-term solutions to imminent problems with effective long term measures. Inside the EU a certain degree of sustainable development technologies in 2035 has been taken up by the markets. Even this modest achievement gives the EU a leading role in the research and application of renewable energies and recycling technologies where a huge international market has opened in response to costly fossil fuels.
At the same time, Europe’s recycling has helped reduce its dependency on raw material imports such as copper and rare earths. The nuclear industry’s rocketing safety and security costs, together with several severe accidents, are pushing the sector to extinction. Security Research includes analysis of cheap, safe and rapid techniques for dismantling the sector’s infrastructure and minimizing nuclear waste-related risks. Although EU policymakers in 2035 know that Europe’s centralized electricity power grid is a main source of vulnerability to attack, decentralization and localization of energy production is not achievable, however, since it is opposed by the grid’s large corporations who still own and control most of the infrastructure.
The EU in 2035 also wants better forecasting of natural disasters, a goal shared and co-funded by industry since better modelling would help reduce the overall cost of an event’s impact. The systems aim to target the drivers of natural disasters and refine long term forecasts about the planet’s ecological limits. This “greener” research footing calls for evaluating the compatibility of technologies, trade regulations and international treaties with the global environment, and developing alternative fiscal systems that shift tax bases away from labour to resource use and waste.
Complementary EU policy in 2035 favours natural disaster resiliency linked to re-creating natural river beds and mixed forests to combat erosion and promote bio-diversity. This leads to a new EU land-classification system that supports organic farming based on old seeds and locally adapted, highly resilient non-GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) cultivars.
Despite its green efforts, new climate-change related diseases are on the rise in the EU. Combined with Europe’s increase in life expectancy, these factors leads to huge investments in gerontology while research examines how shifting habitats will generate new epidemiological threats, such as vector-transmitted diseases.
- Scenario drivers
Scenario background information